Climate organizations gather 90,000 kilos of garbage from Wadden Sea

Three years after the ship MSC Zoe lost 342 containers during a storm, clean-up campaigns have gathered around 90,000 kilos of waste from the Waddenzee.

The accident occurred in the early morning hours of January 2, 2019. More than three million kilos of cargo ended up in the sea. "A lot of rubbish has been cleaned up but by no means everything," said the environmental organization united in the CleanUpXL campaign.

At the beginning of September, the first clean-up campaign started. "With six days of salvage, seven diving expeditions on various wrecks and beach clean-ups with 110 volunteers, we removed 87,593 kilos of was from the sea," the organizations said.

The waste consists of all manners of items, including slippers, fleece blankets, iron sheets and a truck undercarriage.

Researchers showed with the help of sonars that not only waste from the MSC Zoe but lots of other junk was spread in an area of 3,000 kilometers. If the plastic residue is not cleaned up, it could endanger marine animals, salt marshes and dunes for a long time.

Last year the shipping company MSC was ordered to pay 3.4 million euros in compensation.